To discount the role that family and marital dysfunction—and the violence and chaos that ensue—plays in American poverty serves no one well, except perhaps those well-off suburban progressives who don’t want to feel all icky and judgmental about all those lives that are so very messy and so very much in need of judgment.Williamson is reacting to a David Brooks New York Times column saying much the same thing, and an Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig piece for New Republic which criticizes Brooks' formulation.
At base, these three write about the major philosophical difference between conservatives and liberals. Are the poor, the down-trodden, the criminal classes victims, as liberals believe, or are they responsible for their own condition as conservatives believe? Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for bringing the three columns together as an impromptu forum.
